Lee White, Coeur D’Alene police chief, told reporters that 31 members of the Patriot Front were facing charges of conspiracy to commit riots and that additional charges could be filed later. A local man spotted the men, wearing white masks and shields, getting into a U-Haul truck and called police, telling the emergency dispatcher it “looked like a small army,” according to White. Police pulled the truck about 10 minutes after the call. The video, which was taken at the scene of the arrest and posted on the Internet, shows about 20 men kneeling next to the truck with their hands tied, wearing similar khaki pants, blue shirts, white masks and baseball caps. Police found at least one smoke grenade and documents containing a “business plan” from the truck, as well as shields and shin guards, which made their intentions clear, White said. “They came to revolt in the city center,” he said. The men come from at least 11 states, White said, including Texas, Colorado and Virginia. The Patriot Front was formed after the gathering of white nationalists “Unite the Right” in 2017 in Charlottesville, Va., When it split from another extremist organization, Vanguard America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.
